Ever Deepening

Modern Times

When I was growing up, I had an internal litany: "Lead with your
heart." I did this quite intuitively, and it was not until I was 40 that I
realized that I wasn't getting much of a response. The denizens of modern
society appear to be hollow in their hearts. In America at the beginning
of the 21st century, I would assert that the dominant cultural mode is
manipulation of our needs and understanding to focus our power. The reader
might evaluate his quotidian reactions to evolve an independent
assessment.

Where is love? Traditionally, the heart is associated with love. That
prejudice is easy to understand. The virtue of being in a loving
relationship is the synergistic benefits of aligning our energy with
another's. Everything becomes easier because skills merge together
seamlessly to cover our weaknesses. When a lover walks away from us, we
lose that synergy. Our heart may indeed feel "broken": our energetic
resources are over-burdened and ineffectual.

But what kind of love does that reflect? Keeping the sense of our
philosophical discussion, that is all about self-love. How do we
know whether someone loves us?

Love in that sense is far more complicated. It is measured by depth of
sincerity, psychological intuition and commitment of will to exercise
opportunities to create power in the one loved. Referencing the list
above, love involves a number of energy centers, to a focused purpose.
"Puppy-love" - the unintelligent merging of our energy - is an indulgence
to be discouraged. Not only does it leave us vulnerable to a broken heart,
it leaves us without a roadmap for disengagement from dysfunctional
relationships that invade all of our systems.